Biography

Manuel Felguérez is a Mexican abstract artist best known for his involvement in the postwar Generación de la Ruptura group. In making Constructivist and Cubist inspired sculptures and paintings, Felguérez confronted the dominant style of such Mexican muralists as Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and José Clemente Orozco, with work focused on aesthetic and formal experimentation rather than political or social agendas. Born on December 12, 1928 in Valparaíso, Mexico, the artist was raised in Mexico City and went on to study under French-Russian Cubist artist Ossip Zadkine at the Grande Chaumière Academy in Paris. Felguérez’s abstract art was not accepted in Mexico at the time, so he turned to Europe to fully explore what he termed “multiple space” painting. In France, he met and married Lilia Carrillo, who, along with Vicente Rojo Almazan and Rodolfo Nieto, comprised the Generación de la Ruptura group. In 1998, Felguérez opened the Manuel Felguérez Abstract Art Museum in the city of Zacatecas where around 100 of his works are housed along with another 110 works by Mexican and international artists working in an abstract style. The artist’s paintings and sculptures have been widely exhibited, and he lives and works in Mexico City, Mexico.